The Beat of a Heart
by APurpleAngel
Summary: As a little girl, Orihime makes a wish to find a soulmate, hoping Ichigo would be the one. Years go by and friendships are built and lost, and long after Orihime makes her wish does it suddenly seem to start to come true. Set in a universe only a little different from Bleach.
1. Chapter 1

The spring wind breezed into the little city, taking loose leaves and floating seeds of dandelions wherever the breeze desired. The dandelions painted the light blue morning sky and floated around the young children who were playing outside in Karakura Town.

Orihime Inoue was one of such kids, giggling at the sight of the dandelion fluff. Even though few got caught into the eight-year-old's long dark orange hair, she didn't care and tried to search for dandelions on the ground. Many of the kids knew Orihime as the sweetest girl on the block; she was known for her sweet smiles, beautiful dark gray eyes, and also the girl who would kiss boo-boos. At times she would be gullible and even shy, but once she knew someone long enough, her friendliness would show as well as her heart of gold.

Orihime continued to prance around the front lawn of her house, her getting more and eager to find a dandelion. Her older brother, who was now 21 and watching over Orihime, sat at the front porch reading a book. All Orihime could see was Sora's brown hair and forehead sticking out of the book he was reading.

"Brother, Look! I finally found one!" She brought her prize to Sora, who finally took his head out of the book and looked at her with his familiar gray eyes.

"Good job Orihime, are you ready to make a wish?"

"A wish?" She looked at him with confusion. Her brother laughed heartily before continuing.

"Yes, a wish. I'll show you," Sora went down on one knee so he could look Orihime in the eyes.

"What you do is hold the dandelion by the stem, close your eyes, and make your wish. Then you blow on it until all the dandelion fluff is gone."

"But wouldn't that hurt the dandelion?" Orihime worried.

"Not at all. The fluff is the seeds of the dandelion and the seeds need to travel to places to make more dandelions." Sora smiled sweetly. Orihime's eyes brightened at the mention of more dandelions.

"Oh okay, I know just what to wish for!" She turned away from Sora, closed her eyes, and whispered, "I wish someday to find my soulmate and be in love." Although Orihime didn't know the concept of being in love too well, she knew people were really happy together when they were in love.

As she blew softly at the tiny dandelion, a boy she liked for a while crossed her mind. A boy known as Ichigo Kurosaki, who lived a few doors down. He was strong, had bright orange hair and brown eyes. Despite being taller than her, they were the same age. He never really noticed her too much, but they had the same group of friends in the neighborhood so Ichigo probably considered her a friend as well.

"Did you make your wish?" Sora added with a wink.

"Yup!" She beamed. "Will it work?"

"Only time will tell, but I made a wish on a dandelion and it became true long ago."

"Really? What did you wish for?"

"That is a story for another time," He held up a finger. "For now, I have to prepare lunch. Do you want to help cook?"

"Actually I wanted to go to Tatsuki's today." Orihime loved food and usually never denied cooking with her brother, but now that Orihime had a best friend in the neighborhood Sora understood.

Tatsuki Arisawa lived right next door and when Orihime moved into the neighborhood three years ago the two had become inseparable ever since. Tatsuki was also the best friend and karate partner of Ichigo, which is how Orihime and Ichigo meet from time to time. Tatsuki is known for being quite different from Orihime, both with her tomboyish appearance of pixie short black hair, lean body, and blue eyes as well as her strong, always ready to speak her mind personality.

"I'm going to see if I can find some more dandelions and bring them to Tatsuki," Orihime added.

"What a great idea, very generous of you to share wishes," He patted her head and stood up. "Don't stay too long, lunch will be ready soon." Sora reminded before going back inside.

"Okie dokie!" She skipped around the front lawn once more, found three more dandelions, and went on her way to Tatsuki's.

"She's going to be so happy when I give her-" Orihime's words stopped dead in it's tracks as she saw the people were moving into the old abandoned house right in front of Tatsuki's. She remained on the sidewalk, curiously peering at the newcomers.

First a dim-looking bald man stepped out of the car in the driveway, then a monotonous blonde woman stepped out as well. Orihime guessed they were a married couple. Finally, a young boy stepped out of the car as well. He was tall, skinny and pale in an almost unhealthy way. His shaggy black hair needed a good brushing. The boy stopped abruptly and turned directly at where Orihime stood. Even at that distance, she could see his bright green eyes glow seemingly in an eerie way.

Orihime felt both awkward mixture fear and curiosity. However, her curiosity started to win over and she grew tempted to walk over and talk to him. The minutes that passed were strange, with him staring at her emotionless and her glancing back. Orihime almost had the guts to walk over, until the blonde woman from before came back and slapped the back or the boy's head, grumbling something inaudible. Orihime guessed the blonde woman yelled at the boy for not helping move stuff into the house, because she started pointing toward the moving truck. Orihime took this time to walk right to Tatsuki's house, not wanted to be noticed by the plump blonde woman.

As soon as Orihime knocked on the door, Tatsuki responded by immediately opening the door, grabbing Orihime's arm, and dragging her inside. This in turn made Orihime drop the dandelions outside in surprise. Once inside, Tatsuki slammed the door.

"Did you see the weirdos that are moving in to the abandoned house?" Tatsuki said while peeking through the shades of the front window.

"It's not nice to call them weird." Orihime mentioned but Tatsuki rolled her eyes.

"C'mon, did you see them? Plus, they are moving into the house everyone knows is haunted." Tatsuki made her point and stomped her foot.

"No one knows for sure if it's haunted, but if I were honest the boy did give off a strange feeling.." Orihime joined Tatsuki by looking out of the same window as her.

"My parents asked me to greet them later today, but I don't want to." Tatsuki pouted.

"Well, maybe they are not all that bad. They could turn out to be very nice people." Orihime added.

"I don't trust a woman that looks like a pig, a man that looks like a rhino, and a boy that looks as pale as a ghost." Tatsuki crossed her arms.

"Tatsuki, that's mean! You never know until you meet them."

"Now you are starting to sound like my mom," Tatsuki rolled her eyes. "Let's forget about it for now." Tatsuki began to walk upstairs and Orihime followed. "Besides, I want to show you the awesome orange karate belt I just got. My sensi said I'm learning rapidly." She noted proudly as she lead her friend to her bedroom.

"Did you hear Ichigo wanted to start a baseball team?" Tatsuki added with excitement. "In the back of Rukia's house is an empty field, it would be great to use as a baseball field. All the kids in town are excited, and Ichigo asked me to play as the team's pitcher."

"That's great! Could I be a cheerleader? To cheer Ichi-...I mean the team on?"

Tatsuki held back a chuckle. "Sure, we'll be meeting at the field tomorrow so Ichigo and Renji could pick teams. Better cross your fingers that you end up a cheerleader for Ichigo's team."

"Yeah!" Orihime joyously said. "Wait a sec...What is THAT supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing." Tatsuki winked.

After about an hour of the friends talking, a knock was heard on the door.

"That's probably Sora, lunch must be done." Orihime happily sung.

"You and food. Alright, when you get done eating hurry back. I want to show you how to kick a soccer ball." Tatsuki called out as Orihime left the room.

But when Orihime opened the door, she was not greeted with her brother's friendly face. Rather, a pale dull one of the boy.

"You dropped these flowers a while ago, girl," Three dandelions dangled from his hand. The words he spoke were clear and with certainty, he almost sounded like a talking computer.

Orihime nervously grabbed the dandelions. "They-they are not flowers. They're called dandelions." She stuttered.

The boy tipped his head curiously. "Dandelions? Never heard of such a word."

She handed one to him cautiously and said. "If...if you blow on them, you can make a wish." She continued to stutter.

"Quite an interesting superstition, I wouldn't mind taking part." He accepted the dandelion and observed it.

"From the way you are stuttering, girl, it suggests you are afraid of me. Are you afraid?" His large green eyes peered into hers as he didn't hesitate at all to ask.

"Don't call me girl, my name is Orihime Inoue." She grew a little more confident around him.

"Interesting name, girl. Mine is Ulquiorra Cifer." She got slightly irritated that he ignored her request to call her by her name.

"Ulquiorra? That's kind of hard to pronounce, do you have a nickname?" The strangeness of the name confused her for a bit.

"I neither have a nickname nor a middle name." The calmness in how he spoke made Orihime feel a little more comfortable, but the fact he showed no emotion at all perplexed her.

Just then, she felt her arm get tugged from behind and the door slammed into Ulquiorra's face as she got dragged in by Tatsuki.

"What are you doing talking to that creep?" She scolded.

"He's actually pretty polite, it was rude for you to slam the door at him." Orihime answered with her hands on her hips.

"I do not want you near him, not until I trust him."

Orihime sighed and another knock on the door resounded.

Tatsuki swung the door opened and yelled "Stay away from-" But before she finished she realized it was Orihime's brother. Orihime peeked out the window just in time to see Ulquiorra enter his house with the dandelion in his hand.

"What's wrong? Is everything alright?" Sora asked with concern.

"Everything is fine." Tatsuki facepalmed. Orihime looked at Tatsuki then back at her brother and nodded.

"I'm ready to eat lunch, bye Tatsuki!" Orihime hugged her while Tatsuki whispered "Remember what I said..."

Orihime mumbled a "Yes, I know," before leaving with Sora on a walk back to her house.

As they passed Ulquiorra's house, she glanced back with wonder, truly debating on whether or not to take Tatsuki's words to heart.

* * *

**Author's note: Okay so this is my second fanfiction, and if people end up liking it I'll post more chapters (: Also, this may surprise you but Orihime is not my favorite character in Bleach. In fact, I kind of dislike her. But from typing this up she is starting to grow on me, a little. Plus I made her too cute in this chapter to hate D: **

**EDIT 5/30/13 : Just got my first review! Yippee XD That's enough for me to update another chapter tomorrow (: **


	2. Chapter 2

Sunday morning Orihime woke up to the smell of brown sugar pancakes cooking. The sweet aroma teased her nose and brightened her morning. Before having her stomach guide her downstairs, she decided to dress differently. "What do cheerleaders wear?" Glancing at her wardrobe, she figured a pink shirt and skirt would do. "Now my hair..." She never stuck anything in her hair usually, save for the pins her brother got her a while ago. The eight year old came to the conclusion that cheerleaders wore ponytails or pigtails, so she stuck two tiny pigtails in her hair and left the rest down.

Rushing downstairs, she found four pancakes stacked on the counter, with some extra pancakes nearby. Sora knew Orihime had quite the appetite, sometimes she even finished what Sora had left over. Orihime did not hesitate to attack her pancakes, eating them even faster than usual.

"What's the hurry?" Sora questioned while taking gradual bites of his breakfast.

"Gonna go with Tatsuki to Rukia's house, I hear Rukia has a backyard big enough to play baseball in." Orihime's dark gray eyes lit up.

"You are dressed awfully nice to be playing baseball..."

"No sillyhead, I'm going to be a cheerleader!" She used the chopsticks she was eating with as imaginary pom-poms.

"I see," Sora held back a chuckle. "Do you know this Rukia girl that well?"

"Kind of, she goes to my school. But any friend of Tatsuki or Ichigo is a friend of mine." Orihime put a lot of emphasis on the name Ichigo, which made Sora give an authoritative "Hmmmmm..."

"What? What's wrong?" She said puzzled.

"Nothing, but what are you going to use as pom-poms?"

"The feather-dusters in the garage, of course!" She spoke as if it was the most obvious thing.

"Those? You can't use those dirty dusters as-"

"It can work, they are pink too so they match my outfit."

Sora internally facepalmed but said nothing.

"Oooh, time for me to go." She trotted swiftly on her way to the garage and stole the two feather-dusters. Before leaving out the door, she made one mouse-like sneeze.

Sora took this moment to release the laughter he had been holding in.

Meanwhile, Tatsuki waited by the sidewalk for Orihime, keeping her eyes on the strange house the boy moved into. She kept in mind that she knew for sure she saw ghosts and skull-like monsters lurking around the house a while back. None of the kids believed her until Ichigo saw a ghost there as well. For some reason the kids in town trusted Ichigo's words more. Now, no kid dares to touch even a blade of grass on the haunted house's lawn.

"I'm here!" Orihime cheered.

"Good, standing around her was giving me the creeps." Tatsuki replied with her arms crossed.

The walk to Rukia's was not a far one, she lived in the first house of the street behind Orihime's street. While on the walk, they met up with Renji who was on his way to Rukia's as well. Renji had bright red hair kept in a short but spiky ponytail. He also had strange black tattoos on his brows and forehead that spreaded to his neck. Orihime always wanted to ask where he got them (or how his parents even allowed him), but she never had the guts to.

"Ready to get your butt kicked by Ichigo's team?" Tatsuki snickered.

"Heck no! My team is going to win every game that smudge Ichigo thinks he can win." Renji spoke proudly. Renji and Ichigo were the biggest rivals the kids in town knew. Although most of the rivalry was in fun because of their good friendship, sometimes either of them got too serious.

The rivalry could have been caused by the fact they were both the strongest boys and both had the most leadership skills, and both never denied a challenge. The other reason could be, as much as Orihime hated to admit, that one of the boys were always jealous on who spent more time with Rukia.

"Don't be too sure, Renji." Tatsuki stuck her tongue out.

"Hey, you don't know what team you are going to be on, so shut it!"

Tatsuki giggled at Renji getting easily angered.

"Cool it, this is all just for fun, remember?"

"Yeah," but Renji had a lot of determination on his face, "Just for fun..."

Orihime remained silent but smiled lightly.

Rukia greeted them as well as other kids at her backyard. She was rather short, even shorter than Orihime. However, what she didn't have in height she made up for the loud yet royal sounding voice she had. Orihime noticed that the sight of Rukia made Renji at ease.

"We will not have have no whining or crying on who ends up on whose team." Rukia stuck an authoritative finger in the air.

"Everyone will line up and a coin will be tossed to see which captain will choose first." Rukia made herself loud and clear. Catching sight of a spikey orange bushy haired guy escaping the crowd to join Renji, Orihime waved at him. Ichigo seemed perplexed for a moment but waved back kindly before turning his eyes back to Rukia. Orihime kept her attention on Ichigo, just the sight of him cause tiny butterflies in her stomach.

"I said, lineup!" Rukia raised her voice with her purple eyes piercing. A lonely black strand of her smooth short hair rested between her eyes.

A large line of kids formed, and Ichigo and Renji stood in front, occasionally glaring at each other. There were enough kids to make two teams, and a few kids stood out of the line, mainly there to spectate and enjoy the game.

While Rukia dug a coin out of her pocket, Renji and Ichigo continued to death-glare. It was more than obvious whoever chose first was going to snag Rukia, while the other would steal the talented Tatsuki.

"I call heads," Ichigo mumbled.

Rukia nodded and flipped the coin.

Landing on tails, Renji grunted all-too-quickly, "Rukia will be on my team."

Rukia shrugged and walked over to Renji, who blushed lightly while Ichigo groaned in defeat. Then, remembering Tatsuki, Ichigo pointed to her quickly. Upon joining her best friend, Tatsuki fist pumped Ichigo.

"Tatsuki, you will be my pitcher, like we planned." Ichigo smirked back at Renji.

"Oh yeah? My next choice is Shuhei Hisagi, he's known for his endurance." Renji said quickly. A spiky black haired boy with a scar and bandage on his nose stepped forward and on to Renji's side.

"Then I'm going with Uryu Ishida, one of the faster kids." Ichigo bragged as a blue haired kid with glasses joined Ichigo.

The two continued to bicker back in forth at the other's choices, making picking teams longer than it had to be. Feeling almost like a third wheel, Orihime sat on the grassy floor, wondering when to discuss cheerleading with the other girls.

"Guys, look! The freaky kid is here!" Somebody shouted and all eyes turned to a pale kid who stood a great distance away.

"Ulquiorra?" Orihime squinted as the beaming sun invaded her eyesight. She could hear the wisp of words from kids gossiping about him._ Why does everyone looked so scared of him?_ Her thoughts bubbled._ Well, word must have gotten out he lives in the haunted house. However, his appearance is helping him at all._

Then, without warning, Ulquiorra started stepping closer to the group of kids. After every step he took, the kids around her opened their eyes wider and wider.

_This is not going to be good..._

* * *

**Author's Note: So I was kind of past my schedule to post this chapter, but at least it's out XD If the week does not keep me busy, I'll post another chapter soon. Anyways, one of the reveiwers asked if there was going to be any IchiHime...I'm going to keep that as a maybe ;D I don't want to spoil too much, but later in the story there might be scense IchiHime fans will like (: As well as "other stuff" for other characters...oh dear I hope I'm not saying too much -_-**


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